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Fiscal Cliff and Lame Duck Session Will Produce Terrible Policies

Personal Freedom and Prosperity 110: A Predictable and Stable Legal Order

A government with moral and legal authority promulgates written rules and universally, impartially and uniformly enforces the rules, which provides a predictable and stable legal order on which to base economic and personal decisions. The law prevails, not the proclamation or arbitrary decision of a ruler, government bureaucrat, the enforcer (e.g., policeman) or judge.

Fiscal Cliff and Lame Duck Session Will Produce Terrible Policies

In 2011, President Obama and Congress promulgated the “Fiscal Cliff.” On January 1, 2013, tax rates will increase and spending cuts (actually slowing the increases) will be made to military and a variety of domestic programs.

The Fiscal Cliff was intented to be bad policy. It was intended to force the President and Congress to convene after the 2012 election and rescind its legislation. This is a violation of our Constitution and the intention of our 20th Amendment. Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Boehner and McConnell (the Conniving Five) have intentionally excluded the American public from knowing and commenting on major policy decisions. In 2010, Bruce Ackerman of Yale Law called a Lame Duck session undemocratic and deplored its use for major legislation.

It is utterly undemocratic for repudiated representatives to legislate in the name of the American people. Worse, the prospect of a lame-duck session encourages sitting politicians to defer big issues till after Election Day and thereby avoid scrutiny by the voters.

Already, these political machinations by the Conniving Five have wrecked havoc on America. The Fiscal Cliff law has and will have an enormous impact on almost every taxpayer, thousands of government employees, hundreds of military contractors and the unemployed.

For over a year, the Conniving Five created economic and political uncertainty. Employers are not hiring when they are unsure of what their tax burden will be and have no idea what the Conniving Five will legislate before January 2013. Governmental bureaucrats are still making up the rules for ObamaCare, and America presently does not have a stable and predictable legal order on which every American can reasonably make personal and economic decisions. This has not only discouraged but retarded economic growth.

Apparently, getting elected and being put into power trumped any interest for good governance.

From now through Christmas, the Conniving Five will negotiate and pander to their special-interest groups. Already, President Obama has met with union leaders and complicit big business CEOs. In government talks, the unions and CEOs are called stakeholders. Tragically, the real stakeholders are We the People, and We are excluded from the negotiations. This is immoral and will inevitably produce incompetent laws and policies.

Today, Obama is once again going to ignore the Constitution. This time, the Constitutional right under attack is gun control. According to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, Obama will be presenting a “concrete package” of proposals which will water down the Constitutional rights of American citizens.

Forget all the post-election hand wringing over shifting demographics and outreach, the real problem for Republicans remains their complete inability to craft a narrative of their own or, more importantly, to counter false narratives created by the Democrats.In the Age of Obama, this has become akin to a formulaic Hollywood horror franchise with only minor tweaks to each script. Think "Friday the 13th", only much, much scarier when the real consequences are fully realized.

As we approach the next artificially constructed, politically motivated, intentionally promoted national crisis, we should keep one thing in mind: though we speak of a national debt, there is no single national debt. The debts the government owes are real enough, and a source of national shame, totalling as they do over $16 trillion. But those debts are owed to millions of holders of the various Treasury notes, bills, and bonds, each of whom may own multiple securities of various maturities. Sold weekly, the securities come due and, as people get around to it, are either rolled over or redeemed every business day.That is important because as we run up against the debt ceiling, the fear mongers will claim that failure to raise the ceiling will cause us to default on the debt, as if it is one single sum owed to a single debt holder. Defaulting on it is made to sound like the sky is falling, as if it would be the end of the nation itself.Another category of securities are those held by government agencies, such as the Social Security "Trust Fund" and the federal pension funds. Failure to redeem one of these securities would be politically explosive, exposing the duplicitous nature of the generational theft caused by runaway spending.In fact, defaulting on one of these debts, as stupid and irresponsible as that would be, would merely cause people to reconsider the soundness of tying up their money in Treasury securities. That would cost the government more in interest payments in the future, which would probably lead to a chain reaction of inflation. On the other hand, it might lead people and institutions to invest in more productive ways, such as in the stock market.

Since November's debacle, hundreds of conservative pundits and activists have wrung their hands over the GOP’s messaging problem. Luckily for Republicans my background is in branding, marketing and communications, so let's fix this.In today's mainstream media, conservatives can't catch a break. Epic Democratic catastrophes are ignored while minor Republican faux pas are branded as threats to the republic. Among the chattering classes liberalism has all the power; that won’t be reversed overnight. So conservatives must use liberals' power against them.

Welcome to our new podcast " The FreedomCast." Twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday, I'll be bringing you interviews, news and updates on issues important to our listeners and the FreedomWorks family.
Today, Senator Mike Lee and I discuss the fiscal cliff bill, the upcoming debt ceiling battle, and why truth resonates with the American people.

It's like deja vu all over again. The fiscal cliff bill, H.R. 8, was drafted behind closed doors, and lawmakers were given six minutes to read the 154-page bill before voting on it. Once again, we apparently had to pass the bill to find out what's in it.

If you ask many Americans, the largest long-term crisis facing the country is the national debt. Persistently high unemployment, an uncertain economic recovery, soaring health care costs, and a stuttering public education system are all significant contemporary problems, but the skyrocketing national debt seems to loom as a threat to the stability of the government and country itself. With that in mind, shouldn't more of us have a firm understanding of how the national debt works?

In the wake of the recent fiscal cliff deal, a jubilant White House bragged about breaking the Republican's no-tax pledge, referring to their victory as "one of the most consequential policy achievements of the last couple decades".But New York Congressman Chris Gibson, who had already hinted that he would not be beholden to the Grover Norquist no-tax pledge that he signed a mere two years earlier, doesn't quite see it that way.